Sunday Night Office Update, Part IV

...oooh, I've just discovered you can do colours with this thing!!!... (and to think last year at this time I hated computers)....

I was going to write this two days ago, but on Tuesday around 10:00 pm, my usual blogging hour, we had the most terrific thunderstorm, and so I sat by the window in our darkened living room and watched all the lightning instead. It was quite spectacular. Hmmm. Reading that over, it sounds like I actually had a choice in the matter. The reality is that whenever there is electricity in the sky Mr. IQ gets all paranoid and insists on shutting the computer down. He is convinced that our last computer bagged it because of lightning and so now, if there is even the merest hint of rain, he's racing in to shut everything off. It's a little annoying, especially given all the crappy weather we've been having around here lately.

Anyway, I was going to tell you why I haven't been blogging much lately...

Because the first step to getting anything done in this life is to make a list, this spring, Mr. IQ and I sat down and outlined all the things we would like to see completed by the end of the summer. Actually (and this should really come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about male/female dynamics) I outlined them while Mr. IQ looked on, assuming the expression of a sick old man. Lounging around on the deck with an assortment of international beers was not on my list of "must dos" for the summer. This seemed to distress him a bit.

"Summer is going to suck," he said as he stared at my list.

"When the Mama Bear is happy, everyone is happy," I told him.

I received a baleful look. No, it said, when Mama Bear finally keels over and dies everyone will be happy.

Harsh, I vibed back. But I knew he meant it. Had I upped and snuffed it the next day in a car accident, behind all the feigned tears his thoughts would have been, Phew! That was lucky! Building that greenhouse-slash- winery she wanted in the backyard would have really sucked...

But none of this matters now anyway. The Great Sewer Explosions of 2007 have cut short all my plans for an organized office, nicely painted walls and a decently tiled kitchen. Now any free time Mr. IQ has he spends down there in our Hellzone, ripping up boards, sorting through crap and swearing. And bringing up stuff. Sloooooooowly. And here's the frustrating and annoying thing:

All the stuff he has brought up so far belongs to... me.

Now listen: 99.999999999% of the crap down there is his. Really. Okay, maybe 95%. It's a basement for crying out loud, where else do you store seasonal items? OF COURSE I keep some of my stuff down there, and I do so at the risk of never, ever seeing it again, by the way. Last winter, for example, he was unable to locate my super warm winter boots, essential for walks in -40 C weather. To say this was a source of conflict and stress between us would be tantamount to calling Pol Pot A Very Naughty Boy. We never found them. My feet froze. We fought a lot about it. It wasn't pretty.

Then spring came along and he couldn't find my roller blades. I'm sorry, there aren't too many pleasures in this miserable world but roller blading is definitely one of them: Knowing I was going to be spending the spring and summer without my beloved, precious blades sent me swirling into about as black and miserable a rage as any person has known. Each time he went down there I would snarl, "And find my @#$&!! roller blades!" But he never did. Tensions were mounting. I made inquiries about a nice rooming house on Main Street he could move into. You know the story. Things were looking bad.

Then one evening, about three days after Great Sewer Explosion #1, he emerged from that hole with a triumphant look on his face, carrying a large, bulky plastic bag.

"I have good news and bad news!" he said happily.

"Give me the bad news first," I said.

"Well, the bad news is, I still haven't found your roller blades," he said. I growled.

"But the good news is, I've found your boots!!" he shouted and dumped my 40 pound, triple layered Kamiks into my lap. This was a June day, mind you. The temperature was about 28 C out with 99% humidity.

"Oh yay," I said, trying hard to quell the sarcasm. He was so proud and happy and all I wanted to do was punch something. (Have I ever mentioned my clever and groundbreaking theory that men and women are not compatible and should never live together? I'll have to outline it for you some time, it's quite original.)

To be fair and true, he did eventually dig out my blades too. But that's not the story here. What I wish to discuss is the fact that while only a modest 5% of the basement contents belong to me, it was those items that were being carted upstairs. Okay, not everything I have down there is a seasonal item. I have a weakness for, um, cheap garage sale furniture with "promise." So, uh, there have been a number of items I've purchased over the years for a song that I really have been meaning to fix up. A chair. A desk. A dresser. A telephone table. Large, bulky items. All pretty ugly. He brought them up one by one and placed them conspicuously in the front hallway. I think this was his silent but damn effective way of making a statement.

A lesser person than me would have balked at the evidence of her own tendency to accumulate things. But not me! No sir! I took a look at that dresser and said to myself: I'll show him! I'll have it redone by the end of this week! And after spending some time on the computer looking for a modest and workable template....

...I spent the rest of the week sanding, priming, purchasing paint, re-consulting my original design, making a few adjustments here and there and DA-DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DID IT!!!!!!!! The finished product!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm kicking myself for not taking a "Before" picture. Keep in mind this was a $15 garage sale find. While staying for the most part true to the original Tibetan design I picked out, yet boldly adding my own personal touches here and there, I must say I really created a masterpiece of a furniture item. It's been cause for some reflection, let me tell you. At the risk of sounding hopelessly immodest and evoking your jealousy, I have to admit that I really am an incredibly accomplished person. I can make a hearty and nutritious lentil and parsnip stew that makes Mr. IQ shed tears of wondrous joy before he's even taken a single bite. I mastered most of the important swear words at an incredibly young and tender age, bringing praise and recognition to my understandably proud parents. I can go for days without bathing and my peers are none the wiser thanks to my well-honed mastery of the perfume bottle. But I have to say, none of these things even compares to my completion of this dresser last week. Really. I'm so damn proud of myself I could cry.